How do you feel about games that have no mental attributes for PC’s? (Presumably with the justification that “it’s the player’s job to think/talk/come up with ideas” or something, but they don’t always mention it specifically). Pendragon is a classic example but there are many more niche ones.
>>97744861I think it's fine, though not my preferred way of doing things, and it fits some games better than other. When I ran Pendragon, it didn't feel like anything was missing.
>>97744861I don't think I've seen one.>PendragonLast I checked Pendragon had a whole slew of mental traits, far more than most games.
>>97745177But not intelligence, charisma, etc.
>>97744861>How do you feel about games that have no mental attributes for [PCs]?That one detail alone isn't enough to form an opinion on an entire classification of games.I prefer it when games don't have mental attributes, but a game could be a dice-pool & count successes or daddy-decides garbage and I'd still hate those games.I have to know the rest of a game beyond one detail in order to form a proper opinion on it.
>>97744861>“it’s the player’s job to think/talk/come up with ideas”Absolutely fucking retarded.Does your playgroup expect a player to bench 225 in order to roll an high STR Barbarian?If not, then a social retard should be allowed to roleplay a smoothtalking Bard , and a moron to roleplay a genius Wizard. The core idea of a TTRPG is using stats and dice to abstract unrealistic fantasies for you to roleplay. Why whould some fantasies be given precedence over the others?
>>97744861How well a character is capable of thinking is important trait. If we are taking a gamist / simulationist approach with a character's physical abilities, there isn't a good reason to not do so with their mental abilities as well. Those mental traits also correspond to various in-game tasks that aren't necessarily well-simulated by just 'roleplaying it out' or 'thinking for yourself'; perception, reading social cues, and magical lore being some easy examples. It also devalues various smooth talker, nerd classic, and wise man archetypes simply because the system no longer actually supports such things.
>>97745432>Does your playgroup expect a player to bench 225 in order to roll an high STR Barbarian?No, because the rules say you can simply do it.But the rules for social mechanics are universally wishy washy horseshit that lets the GM have the last word on what works and what doesn't by RAW. So you still need to say exactly what you want to say and convince the GM first and foremost or it won't work.
>>97744861It is a certain style of play for sure, but generally I don't think it is a go-to way to play. Because just like the hero with the highest social stat can be "le face of the party" the player who has the most articulated speech IRL and vibes with the GM will be "le face of the party". I think you really need to have both. Dice roll and role-playing and augmenting the leverage to determine difficulty and/or if the failed roll will be counted as a partial success (depending on the system).
>>97744861>suddenly players stop making unique characters and play idealized Mary Sue versions of themselves.that's a no in my books famalam
>>97744861I feel like the problem of players wanting to roll to have the GM tell them exactly what a smart person would do is exaggerated. I'm sure some people do it, but a lot of the complaints I've seen come off more as BrOSR bullshit about how players should just read their GM's mind and intuit the super clever and witty solution that the GM obviously has in mind. Which is the other part of the problem that never gets brought up. The GM is not required to be smart, clever, or creative. The GM's tools, depending on system, do not imbue creativity and charisma and wit that they do not have. If the GM is running out of a module or adventure, all the solutions are already decided, and if the GM thinks you don't deserve to move forward because you didn't pick the right answer that was written by someone else, AND the GM doesn't let you use your characters attributes and abilities to solve it because social and mental challenges are just different for no reason, then you don't. The players have to be charismatic and insightful at all times, even if the GM is a dullard. This is usually why things go to dice rolls instead, because the GM can just say >the NPC ignores your impassioned, thoughtful, well-reasoned argument because I say so!
>>97746857This pretty much. >I want to use my high strength to rip this door off its hinges>No problem! Roll!>I want to use my high intelligence to figure out how this puzzle works>lol no you must figure it out yourself>I want to use my high charisma to convince this man to let us through>Okay, what, exactly do you say to him? I need a convincing argument and THEN a roll.This doesn't apply to every game but anecdotally most of the ones I've been in have followed this trend. Same concept when a guy who's very well spoken in real life just straight up isn't asked to ever roll for social skills because of his roleplaying, nevermind that he dumped Fellowship/Charisma/Whatever.
>>97744861The only mental stat I'm absolutely against is whatever the system's "fear resistance" attribute is. It's never actually scary, it's always some horseshit that just comes down to losing control of your character while everyone who rolled well gets to actually play the game.Dark Heresy was always the worst for this.>horror appears>everyone joking about this stupid looking kirby thing and how we're going to just rip it apart with automatic weapons>"Alright, roll against Fear 2, so -20 on your test.">What? This thing's not scary>"Yeah it is, you're all horrified, so roll at a -20">2/5 party members fail and spend 20 minutes watching the rest of the party have fun in a combat encounterIt's always fucking stupid. I'll die on this hill. Fear as an actual mechanic is stupid in every single game it appears in.
>>97751652Mmm yes.>there's this game that has really shitty mechanics I don't like>I'll continue to play this game that has those shitty mechanics>Not only that, I won't take any character generation options that reduce the risk or effect of those shitty mechanics>Also, I won't take any sort of resource-based options that might reduce the risk or effect of those things>Without such equalizers, I don't have my character avoid locations or missions involving a prominent source of the shitty mechanics I hate>And I certainly don't take the effort to make sure the sources don't confirm or engage my character>In fact, I'll directly engage the source of the shitty mechanics, in spite of having no equalizers or prevention available>And when my character is affected, I'll get mad about it!>How could this be happening to me!?Such a shame.
>>97744861>How do you feel like they've entirely missed the point of roleplaying a character that's different than themselves in either direction. >the PC is just a pawn of the player's actions and/or>the PC is just a self-insert for the player's personality both of which are shit.
>>97751652>Ok, you lose a turn and can't approach the demon for 1d4 turns... but in a brave way.
>>97751652>playing Dark Heresy of all games>surprised that daemons from the warp are supernaturally frightening/maddening>surprised his character that he explicitly made without the willpower to resist that isn't braveThis is the best argument in favor of mental stats I've seen in a while.
>>97750251It comes from a misguided adversarial DMing mindset. Rules for thee (players), but not for me (DM). The players have to jump through hoops to get the DM's approval, while the DM acts as if his role is a position of authority granted by the Mandate of Heaven.
>>97751615To be fair, isn't the guy saying he's going to rip the door off the hinges also giving an explanation of how he's going to do it like the social player is? He's not just saying "I use my strength to get past the door."
>>97744861There are so many games where mental attributes do fuck all, so it at least feels honest when there are games that just gut mental attributes completely.
>>97770559Don't be a pedantic faggot rules lawyer.
>>97744861>“it’s the player’s job to think/talk/come up with ideas”Fucking stupid. The whole point in rpgs is it's the character's skill and abilities at play, not the player's.
>>97770559To be completely fair, the guy running the game isn't telling the guy asking to rip the door off to describe the muscle groups he's using, the pattern of his breathing, the planting technique to keep himself from budging, the specific areas of torque he's putting on the boards/hinges, whether or not he's fully exerting himself or trying to avoid strain, and the level of force he's trying to generate in general. This is more tantamount to what arbiters who demand explanations of intelligence or charisma ask for. They ask for specifics in one area, but ignore specifics in other areas, almost as if they gloss over what they might not know, and are possibly inconsistent with their standards.And it's almost as if people who defend this behavior either don't realize this themselves, or are content to gloss over it in hopes nobody else notices.But what do I know? I just want to play games with rules I can know, reference, and understand, not play guessing games with someone eager to twist things to his own satisfaction depending on how he feels one particular moment.
>>97770559It's just pedantic, really.>I smash down the door>>How, praytell? Hmmmmm??>My character is 300 pounds of muscle and is carrying another 200 pounds of gear and weapons. My characters throws his shoulder into the door. Do you want me to roll?>>Oh ho! You have convinced me with your astute observations! Ho ho! No roll needed!
There's not that many ways to bodily break down a door or lift a boulder but the dynamics behind linguistic social interactions are infinitely more complex and varied.
>>97776690And those complications can be represented by a dice roll, representing all the various variables contending with each other, like other dice rolls.
>>97776812No, they can't be, because the dynamics behind linguistic social interactions are infinitely more complex and varied than lifting a boulder or hitting someone on the head with a sharp stick.
>>97776822Everything that happens in the heat of a battle is countless variables contesting each other in fractions of a second. Combat is far more complex than you give it credit for, and it shows you haven't actually thought about this.
>>97778868Sure, but since we can't stand up and simulate an entire battle we will have to make do with what we have.On the other hand, we can talk, so we will talk.
>>97778890We can talk, but accurately simulating the values, beliefs, goals, desires, fears and so on of some faux-medieval king and his reactions to whatever players say is a different matter.
>>97778912No, it's not a different matter. Any attempts to abstract it will allways fail.
>>97778923Sure. Sometimes they just fail less than attempts at handling situations completely divorced from the players' real life experiences by just talking.
>>97744861I wanted to add something, but I actually don't know any such game. Care to provide an example?
>>97778890The player is fundamentally incapable of wholly inhabiting their character the the fiction of the world they exist in so they can make a properly convincing argument that would strike true with the fictional NPC the GM is likewise incapable of truly inhabiting. We can talk, but if a character is given stats, skills, and abilities that influence the outcome, we use them, for all the same reasons we reduce combat to dice rolls.We could be simulating the exact length of weapons, blade sharpness, metal quality, weapon weight distribution and balance, character arm-spans, individual joint flexibility, grip strength, adrenaline levels, trained reflexes, stress, fatigue, the impact of the quality of bedding the character slept on the night before, focus levels, eyesight quality, dynamic vision, reaction times, time of day, position of the sun, temperature of the battlefield, soil quality and amount of friction caused by the dampness level of the grass they are standing on, and on and on and on... But we do dice rolls instead, and give the GM permission to decide if a player's description of their character's actions and plans grants them a bonus or an advantage on that roll. Same as we are meant to do for social and mental rolls.
>>97780949We can't simulate a battle to the death but we can just talk.And we will, and any stats or mechanics attached will be simply ignored, intentionally or otherwise, because there has never been and never will be a successful attempt at abstracting human social interaction in a fashion that is reconcileable with our innate understanding of it.
>>97780986>We can't simulate a battle to the deathYou can simulate one exactly as easily as two nonhuman creatures conversing in a nonexistent language.
>>97744861Bump
>>97771597Learn to crop your fucking images
>>97744861>How do you feel about games that have no mental attributes for PC’s?It's my personal preference, I wish more games would do it. Usually you only see it in some Japanese games or systems where your character sheet is mostly a list of things you're trained in (off the top of my head Traveler has an Education stat alongside Intelligence in place of Wisdom and Social Standing is the replacement for Charisma, while still having STR/DEX/CON with the only name change being Constitution is called Endurance.)If you drop mental stats and make it so attributes are things you're physically capable of or have trained in you can do a lot more character archetypes that are extremely common in the sorts of stories that fantasy and scifi games are trying to emulate without being abnormally handicapped in a way that breaks immersion. If instead of Intelligence and Wisdom you just have a straight up "Magic" and "Faith" stat (like pic related, a final fantasy tactics spinoff), a lot of problems with archetypal D&D 6-attribute systems get resolved. 1. It's often extremely unrealistic and immersion breaking for physical strength to compete 1:1 with intelligence especially at the scale of most TRRPGs in a way that puts nonmagical characters at an extreme disadvantage. The average healthy adult male can get the equivalent of 12-14 strength with six months to a few years in the gym, 16 strength with several years of dedicated training, and 18 strength is the level of an Olympic athlete. You cannot bench press your IQ from 100 to 130 with six months in the gym, and even just 16 INT is already approaching some of the smartest humans to ever live, at 180 IQ you're officially smarter than Einstein. It's incredibly unfair to have warriors dedicate their entire character to being "just as strong as the average village blacksmith, and still way way way weaker than a fucking horse or cow" when the same level INT character gets to be smarter than albert einstein.
>>977883662. Mental stats being spellcasting stats straight up deletes a ton of extremely common archetypes from play. You can't be a smart and cunning warrior without everyone on the planet thinking you're a retard for not being a magic swordsman or wizard. Wisdom being directly tied to divine spellcasting means it's impossible to play a young and talented but naive and sheltered priest, you're a living lie detector right from level 1 and are top 0.1% of humanity at detecting lies, reading emotions, and spotting hidden enemies and traps as well as having the mental fortitude to resist extreme pain and torture and is also a skilled surgeon and doctor because those are all Wisdom characteristics you get for free on top of your Jesus miracles or turning into a bear and mauling people to death. Similarly, you can't play somebody who's kind of stupid and lazy but skilled at magic because Intelligence is directly 1:1 tied to arcane spellcasting, so every arcane caster is a master of calculus, natural history, geography, and even noble etiquette because those are all tied to Intelligence. 3. It means you don't have to make a lot of dumb or annoying decisions when designing monsters and animal enemies because everything has to have mental attributes, even things significantly dumber than a human being. Leaving mental attributes to roleplay and making stats only things you're physically capable of or have trained in is just neater. Strength competes with Faith or Magic because you physically need to spend sixteen hours a day in prayer and devotion or magical practice and don't have the time to train in both to the same level, whereas nothing prevents smart people from ALSO exercising (and if anything being smarter makes you BETTER at physical fitness and training)
>>97744861I prefer when attributes aren't really tied to physical or mental qualities, but personality and ability. Like Fire/Water/Earth/Air, Sanguine/Choleric/Melancholy/Phlegmatic, or Faith/Virtue/Acuity/Love
>>97788490I know legend of the five rings does this but I've never really understood how it isn't just physical abilities by another name. >I flow like water fast and swift to smash aside the burning wreckage and force open the barred doors!okay well that's just renaming "Strength" to "Water" and also giving you some tertiary elemental themed benefits for it. Same with all the apocalypse world adjacent garbage that renames stats to shit like "Heart" or whatever, if having a +5 in it means you can smash shit to pieces with your bare hands and you call it "ROLL TO DEFY DANGER!" instead of "roll to attack" to cut a guy's head off, that's still regular attributes in all but name.I forget the name but I did see a system where the attributes were specific gods and your points were your devotion to that deity, and when rolling you had to call out the name of the specific deity you were invoking the favor of to overcome the task which I did like and is the only way I've seen that sort of system be interesting, you can still just put all your points in Mars or whatever and invoke the god of war/strength every time you do strong guy stuff but you can approach the same situation from slightly different angles depending on which deity is invoked, and since it's explicitly a divine invocation it's not just "your character is strong but we're not calling it strength to be hipsters" since they're all coming from gods
>>97788544>that's still regular attributes in all but name.NTA, but that's kind of obvious. The distinction is that by using a more abstracted name, it doesn't need to align 1 to 1 with a typical attribute. Water can include strength, but it isn't exclusively strength. If Water also included sailing and lying to people, then it's clearly covering more. It's basically a way to avoid one attribute dominating everything due to 'realism'.
>>97788544Okay but the elements can all be used to attack and defend and engage in social activity in L5R, so none of them really line up with D&D attributes at all and have nothing to do with your complaintWhat you describe sounds kind of groanworthy but I've never seen it in practice, so I can't really comment on it because I've never seen a game actually do that
>>97788804I don't see how combining multiple attributes into one with a vague elemental theme prevents them from having the same issues normal attribute systems do, I don't think "realism" has anything to do with it, it's just which is more useful. In L5R "Water" is Strength as its physical trait and "Perception" as its mental trait so if anything it's EVEN MORE mandatory than Strength is for strong guy warrior types in other systems since you're getting your main thing and a borderline mandatory skill that literally everyone wants as much as possible. I guess it makes playing a "single attribute dependent" easier if your element covers both your main physical and mental role in the party, but that doesn't actually stop some attributes being shitty compared to others or some characters being forced to make inefficient tradeoffs for arbitrary reasons. Fire is both Intelligence AND Agility so everyone who's really smart is also really fast and quick for free, somebody who goes all-in on Fire or Water can have basically their entire character's niche covered by one attribute while Earth is purely defensive since it only covers willpower and stamina so it doesn't actually let you interact much inside or outside of combat. I don't really see how combining Dexterity and Intelligence together somehow solves the issues of attribute systems, if anything it exacerbates them.
>>97788921>the elements can all be used to attack and defend and engage in social activity in L5RFire is intelligence and dexterity which are literally just d&d attributes, water is literally strength plus perception for free. I don't see how giving wizards 20 dex for free since they also boost intelligence makes the attribute system better
>>97788933It can prevent the issues. Obviously if the designer doesn't take advantage of that, it's not going to. The example of L5R just having each element be two existing attributes isn't the sort of implementation I'm talking about.
>>97788804>If Water also included sailingfunny enough that's part of Fire (Agility)
>>97744861I tend to prefer them.
>>97788947>>97788933Because L5R is not D&D, so having your "wizard" (shugenja) have Int and Dex doesn't mean the same benefits as it would in DnD. And L5R 5E did it even better by removing the substats, so you just have the Rings. The system had some other issues, but you can approach actions from a spiritual or philosophical standpoint for different Rings. >everyone who's really smart is also really fast and quick for freeIn the L5R setting, yes anyone with high Fire will be good at those two to a degree because the Elemental Rings are literally the stuff that makes up reality. But you also need to actually apply yourself to whatever you want to be good at in order to actually do well and not be "Eh, I can kinda wing it" level competent. For example, a trained duelist will very likely murder a courtier in a fight even if they both have the same Rings.
